


Seasons Change but People Don't

by concertconfetti



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Adventures in the Tower, Gen, Guardian Stories, Raids, Strikes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-01-29 00:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12618700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concertconfetti/pseuds/concertconfetti
Summary: Seasons Change but People Don't is a series of ficlets about Virginia Casad, Human Hunter, Sumi-16, Exo Warlock, and CASKY-8, Exo Titan, as they scramble and struggle through life both before and after the Red War. Fics appear out of order, and I will do my best to couch them in context.Virginia listens to terrible music while trying to save the world, Sumi-16 tries to figure out this emotions thing, and CASKY-8 likes beer and bad selfies. They work together and with their friends to beat back the darkness, one bad accent at a time.





	1. Promise Not to Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virginia Casad  
> Working Patrols on Mars  
> Before the Taken War

Virginia bounced from fireteam to fireteam, likely because she was the worst Guardian in the history of existence. Her ghost insisted she wasn’t, of course.

“I picked you, and you’re amazing,” the ghost intoned on a regular basis. Virginia didn’t feel it though. Hunters were usually loners by choice, not because people couldn’t stand them.

She was sitting on an outcropping of rock on Mars, waiting. There was a bounty on Cabal kills, and the usual patrol was late. Dust kicked up on the road, piling around the decrepit Golden Age buildings. The sun glared through her visor, despite the filters. Everything stank of rust and dirt and sweat. Armor kept you safe but Christ did it keep the heat in. The nightstalker sighed and pulled back from her sniper sight.

“Anyone there, Betel?” Virginia asked, crouched on the balls of her feet.

“It seems the Cabal are rather inactive after the Taken activity on Phobos.”

“Great, we should probably pack up then.” She shouldered the sniper rifle and pulled out her sidearm. “Let’s see if we can take any out on our way to the drop site.”

“You don’t want me to summon the ship here?” Betel asked.

“We can’t go back without anything to show for it, Traynor would kill me.”

“Well I’d bring you back,” Betel said; Virginia choked on her laughter.

“Right, of course, little light.”

“Stop that.”

Five minutes later, she wished she had called the ship on the outcropping. An arrow made of void soared out of her bow and tethered three of the Phalanx soldiers but she was surrounded by Centurions.

“Shit shit shit shit shit!” Virginia hissed, shooting as quickly as her sidearm would allow. A large arm clipped her in the back and she yelled, crashing to the ground. She stuck one of them with a void grenade and suddenly…

Nothing. Emptiness. Everything was blacker than void and Virginia was there and not there at the same time. Death. Again.

She fizzled back into existence sometime later - seconds? Days? - and squinted. The sun always burned her eyes when she came back, dust cutting her eyelids. Was Mars always this hot? Surely it wasn’t this hot before.

“Are you all right?” Her ghost was flitting about her. “A hunter and titan came through and took care of the ads. Are you all right?”

“Sometimes I wonder what will happen if you don’t get to me in time,” Virginia mumbled, stretching new and old, ancient bones. Strong and unused muscles. She stood in carnage she contributed to, she was sure but had also claimed her. Again.

“I’ll always find you in time,” Betel said sadly, knowing, likely, that there would come a time when it wouldn’t.

“Of course, little light.”


	2. Fall and Beg and Plead {Sing}

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virginia Casad  
> Fighting the Red War  
> Reclaiming the Light

Virginia went underground after the city fell - dragged herself out of the city through mud and the blood of civilians. Civilians she knew. As a Hunter, she’d often roam the last city with supplies from New Monarchy (some given to her willingly, some “requisitioned”); she’d gotten to know shop owners and children and the old. She used their bodies to hide - despicable. But, without the light, she was no more powerful than they were and infinitely more cowardly. Maybe that big fucker on the command ship was right. 

_“You’re not brave, you’ve only forgotten the fear of death.”_

She and her ghost wandered the mountains for nearly a week, moving slowly past Cabal war beasts and the occasional Fallen with more caution than she’d like. Virginia was known as the Titan-Hunter, which, for the most part, was an insult. She ran into situations recklessly and had more revives on record than most of her usual fireteam members. Shaxx, in particular, found this behavior infuriating. 

Now, anxiety gripped every decision she made - if she died out here, there was no revive at the end of it. Her old fears about facing the Cabal, from her early days on Mars, seeped into every limb. 

* * *

Eventually, she made her way to the farm, and her ghost convinced her to explore the Shard of the Traveler. 

“Really, Betel, I don’t see how this will help,” Virginia said, squinting against the sunlight at the mouth of the Dark Forest.   
  
“It’s a sign,” Betel said, both in response to Hawthorn and Virginia. The shard loomed large, a dark claw arcing out of the ground. The woods and trees looked like they were out of a 21st-century fairytale - haunted and old, filled with owls that’ll eat your fucking face.

“I wonder if the owls here will eat my fucking face,” Virginia said out of the corner of her mouth just as Hawthorn kicked in on the voice channel.   
  
“Yeah, a sign that says ‘dead zone’,” Hawthorn muttered, full of the same doubt that gripped Virginia. She had a point - this was a death trap. Still, it was the only lead they had. If Virginia was going to help these refugees, she’d need the light, unless they were cool with a guardian just sort of….hanging out as a guard. Something told her that wasn’t a possibility. 

* * *

Even with the light returned, there is a certain caution in the Hunter’s step that Cayde-6 doesn’t quite recognize. They’re in the failsafe bay on the Exodus Black, and her ghost is babbling on about something when he heard her speak for the first time. 

“Cayde, they’re going to blow up the sun,” Virginia said, “and you can’t take on Gaul alone.”   
  
“Zavala has a plan and he needs you Cayde,” Betel said desperately. 

“Wait, Zavala needs me? He said those exact words? Please tell me you recorded it!” Cayde yelled, approaching them both. 

“Priorities!” Virginia yelled back. 

“Well did Ikora hear it at least?” 

“No one’s seen or heard from Ikora since the city fell,” Betel chimed in sadly.   
  
“Io. That’s where she’d go for answers,” Cayde said, and she saw an ancientness locked in Cayde then. An old, deep hurt. He hung his head as he walked by. “And uh…Thanks, Hunter - I owe you one.”  
  
“You owe me a lot more than one, Cayde,” she said back, cracking a grin that she hadn’t felt on her face in weeks. Cayde really brought out the fighter and the joy in her. There was a reason he was her favorite vanguard. 

* * *

“Ghost, next song,” Virgina says. She and Bettle are in the EDZ, clearing out Lost Sectors for New Monarchy. She hasn’t seen anyone she knows in a while - she spent most of her time at the Farm, even when the Vanguard and Consensus set back up in the Lost City. The Clan network let her reconnect with the old HKMS fire team, and Schirm was…somewhere. There was a certain shame she carried that became too much when Virginia entered the city. 

The phrase  _“They look to you to save them”_ is carved into her MIDA Multitool. She carries a handcannon lovingly called The Last Skate, and a cloak made of old Titan space suits. Virginia is a collection of nostalgia even as she improves. She’s won in the Crucible, something that happened so rarely in the past, and she’s tried to help civvies with their goals, rather than the other way around. It’ll be a long road to recovery, her dark skin still stained with blood Red the Legion spilled. But things are looking up.   
  
Music blares in her helmet as she runs from sector to sector - Golden Age or not, she’ll be prepared for when the next war comes. 


	3. I Wanna Cut Through The Clouds {Break the Ceiling}

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CASKY-8  
> Post-Gaul's Defeat  
> After the Red War

CASKY-8 is a Titan, but that doesn’t stop her from hanging out with Cayde-6 in the hanger on long nights in the tower. Patrols have taken longer since the Fallen banded back together - one house meant you couldn’t count on them staying in one place. They also liked following dropships now, so you could count on them on every planet and centaur. 

“What’s hanging, CASKY?” Cayde says as the Titan Exo flops down next to him. She’s thrown her armor in the vault for the night and is wearing a pair of old combat boots and soft pants under a loose top. 

“Well, I’m not wearing 50 punds of armor, so it’s alright I guess,” CASKY-8′s voice has a semi-artifacting whir to it like she’s taken one to many hits to the head. “You got a beer?” 

“You know Exos don’t drink, right?” Cayde says sarcastically, throwing the other Exo a brown bottle. “The best New Monarchy’s stores could spare.” 

“Did Virginia steal this?”

“She is my favorite guardian.” Cayde’s face breaks into one of his characteristic grins and CASKY laughs. Exos are a mystery to themselves, but especially other people. The two toasted to each other and looked out over the city. This was CASKY-8′s favorite spot to sit - on a rafter, well below the hanger and high above the city streets. Chunks of the traveler orbited by, the sunset over the mountains. Rigel floats lazily around, scanning items here and there, humming disapprovingly about the alcohol. 

It was this quiet that CASKY appreciated about Cayde - a quiet few Hunters or the Vanguard ever saw. The two Exos drank and watched the sunset once a week since the city was reclaimed. 

“Every guardian is your favorite Cayde, you’re easier to please than Shaxx,” CASKY says after a while. Suddenly she’s falling towards the city, laughing her head off. When she revives in the hanger, Cayde shrugs at her - she punches him in the shoulder. Most of their evenings ended this way, with an insult, a death, and a punch. And that was just fine by CASKY.


	4. HOLD ME TIGHT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CASKY-8  
> In Her Apartment   
> After the Red War

“C-A-S-K-Y. CASKY,” Jay Caskey says over the scratchy old recording. “That’s the name I picked for myself. You only get the one as a robot, I guess.” She laughs. Her voice breaks, and she sounds like she’s crying. “I can’t get surgery but I can become a fucking robot. How do you like that, army?

“You’d think in the golden age of humanity, the army would have updated its stance on transition surgery, but alas.” 

CASKY-8 is staring at her wall, listening to the archaic recording through Reigle’s ambient speakers. The ghost looks solemn and hasn’t said a word for the past hour. This is the last of the recordings they found in the American dead zones. 

“They said I’m not going to lose any of my memories, but like I said in my previous recordings, I don’t trust anything,” she says, quietly. “The Traveler is great and all, but we’re still...we’re still at war. Always. Just not with each other as much. But everyone is going around saying we’ve got peace. Bullshit. Some Golden Age this is.”

Jay Caskey clears her throat - she speaks as though there is always a frog in it. “Anyway, I think it makes sense to make my last uh...statement of self and will and testament here. My name is Lieutenant Jay Caskey, Scout for the European Rangers. I’ve relocated to the Americas of my own free will and volunteered for the Exo Soldier project. Among the volunteers are current soldiers and people with no hope left. No choice really. We don’t really know what’s coming for us - some people say it’s another species of robots. Robots vs Robots, the war to end all wars. Except not. 

“Anyway, should the worst happen, my money is going to my older sister, Rosie. Rosie, please take care of my cats and love them like they’re your own children. That’s….uh….a current thing. I don’t think they allow cats in the unit.” 

“Stop the playback, Riegle.” CASKY-8 coughs, the perpetual buzz in her voice clearer than usual. She sounds as if she’s choking back a sob. 

“Are you alright?” Reigel asks. His voice is deep and voice of his usual sarcasm. 

“I can’t remember my sister,” CASKY says. “Or even that I had a sister. Or cats. I love cats, so I guess that makes sense but I can’t remember their names or what they looked like? How am I supposed to deal with this if I can’t remember who I was?” 

“Well,” Riegel muses, “you deal with it better than most Exos. You don’t die to regain your memories.” 

“I’ve never once discovered a memory while waiting for you to rez me,” CASKY says. “Well, none that mattered. I remembered making pancakes in a cabin once. Mostly food really.”

She gets up and paces around the apartment she built for herself near one of the City’s lakes. It’s a warm room, draped with blankets and tapestries she bought at the local markets. She wanders out onto the open porch and hangs her arms over the balcony, sighing dramatically. Riegel floats out behind her and rests on her head.

“What is dramatically sighing going to do?” 

“Draw attention to my general sense of melancholy?” 

“Fair.” Riegel floats in front of her. He’d picked out a new shell recently and liked facing her so she could take it in in all its weird glory. “Do you want me to get Cayde?”

“No,” CASKY sighs. “No that would be stupid. I’ll just...gear up and go run some Crucible training to take my mind off things. Can you...I mean just play the last part of this recording, I guess.” 

Reigel nods and switches the recording back on. CASKY wanders back into the apartment to grab her armor and guns - she begins pinging her usual fire teams to see who’s awake and ready to train.

“Rosie - I know you hate this. I’m not super thrilled about it either. But I want to serve humanity as me not some...weird fleshy body I’ve never felt comfortable with. I just want to be done with it, you know? And they said we can even still eat so it’s not all bad. 

“I’ll be able to come see you on leave once everything is over. If, after that visit, you never want to see me again, that’s understandable. But….well I’ll want to see you and Lup and Taako before they ship me off to the moon or whatever. Maybe Russia. God, I hope it’s the moon and not Russia. But yeah. I hope you can understand that.

“This is Lt. Jay Caskey, signing off. Keep your light with you.”


	5. Make Me Feel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sumi-16  
> Post-Osiris  
> A Mistake Was Made

Sumi-16 regrets letting Schirm teach her how to joke. 

"I mean, I could be Osiris," she says offhand, looking down at one of his books. It isn't until she looks back up that Sumi realizes that Brother Vance is staring at her. She can't read the look on his face - she's not good with human faces on a good day, and Vance cheats by covering his eyes - but the way his mouth is stretched out over his teeth makes something deep within her retch. Vance is looking between her and Saiph, her ghost, who today is donning a shell similar to Sagira's. Sumi-16 blinks. 

"You raise an interesting point, I hadn't even considered," Brother Vance says, trailing off. Sumi backs away slowly, one of her hands on her hand cannon. 

"Anyway, I must go," she says, before moving quickly though the Vex gate and back out to Mercury. 

Sumi spends the day running around Mercury for Cayde-6, with some assistance from Schirm. They take turns tracking down conquerors and defenders who arise in nearly endless supply these days. They're walking towards the Infinite Forest gate when Sumi explains the tension in the Lighthouse. 

"I simply made a joking statement, like you taught me," she says. 

"And he what, chastised you or something? I mean, it is Vance. He's kind of an asshole." Schirm pulls out his Better Devils and takes out a few psion stragglers. Sumi tilts her head in confusion. 

"No he stared at me and made a face," she says matter of factly. "I couldn't tell what kind of face, though. His lips with pulled back and I could see his teeth, but without the eyes I couldn't --"

"Wait, he  _smiled?"_

"Perhaps, but as I said, his eyes are covered," Sumi says. "It didn't seem mirthful." 

"Oh, I have got to see this." 

The two guardians make their way back to the Lighthouse, tokens and seeds in hand - if they must see Vance, it had better be with the promise of a reward. They enter through the main gate and...

"Guardian, oh, guardian," Vance says, his voice sing-songy on the air. His face is contorted again, in a sort of strange ecstasy. "I have been musing on your statement earlier and all of your deeds. They are certainly Osirian! You would tell me, of course, if you were indeed Osiris? Oh, you wouldn't torture your best student so?"  

Sumi-16 looks at Schirm, her right hand held in a gesture, seeming to say "see, I told you." Schirm grins and seems to be holding back laughter. He coughs, and asks quietly, "what uh....what exactly did you tell him?" His voice raises an octave on his last word. 

"I told him I could be Osiris." 

Schrim falls to the floor with laughter, and Brother Vance walks over to them, irate. "I don't see how anything the Great Osiris could have said would warrent this reaction!" His mouth is drawn in a tight frown, his face bunched with emotion. "Show some respect!" 

"Oh, my god," Schrim says. "Oh my god." 

"Vance I am not --" 

"Please, don't take this ruffian's mirth to heart, oh Master of Time," Vance says, grabbing Sumi's hands. Given the residue he leaves on her frame, she's guesses Vance's hands are what Virginia would call "clammy." "He doesn't appreciate what an honor it is to have you, here! Of all places!" 

"Vance, please I simply --" 

"Oh, I understand! You must return to your great work!" Vance looks at Saiph in reverence. "Please, Sagira, know that I will keep Osiris' secret - that he can pose as a simple guardian! - to myself!" 

"Oh, uh, thanks" Saiph says in her best impression of Sagira's voice. "Listen we have to go now." 

"But of course," Vance says, taking a deep bow. "I will also remove this ruffian! Consider seriously your behavior here, guardian!"

"Oh, oh I will," Schirm says, picking himself off the ground. Sumi rushes herself out of the Lighthouse, Vance's cries of "goodbye, great one!" echoing in her auditory processors. Schrim follows suit, still giggling to himself. 

"Is this what embarassment is?" Sumi asks. Schrim nods, still trying to catch his breath. 

"Oh, god, probably," Schirm says, taking deep breaths between words. "I can't believe he fell for that and you weren't even planning on pranking him. I need to tell the others about this." 

"Please do not." 

"Sumi, seriously, this is more on Vance's head than your's," Saiph says. "There's no reason to feel embarrassed." 

"I don't like this." Sumi says simply, walking off on her own. Perhaps she could consult Sagira on this situation, and receive better advice. It would be better to clear this up than have Vance write entire cantos on Osiris and his shape shifting ability. Though, based on the odds, he'd already begun a new book on the matter.


	6. gave me a name, gave me power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sumi-16  
> Tangled Shore

Cayde-6 had asked her to come with him to the Prison that day; he said it was because he needed her "warlocky healy stuff" and that "Ikora would never go for the plan." Sumi hadn't argued - she knew Ikora better than most, and Cayde was right. Ikora would have hated the plan. 

Still, Sumi hadn't expected this. 

She's been floatsom on the Tangled Shore for weeks now. The only people who knew she'd left were Ikora and CASKY-8. The rest of her fireteam, her friends? They'd either find her or they wouldn't. Sumi's never been one for emotions, and the look on Casky's face when she found out...Sumi can't handle that. Better to get revenge for the lot of them, rather than watch them all mourn. 

Sumi-16 doesn't know how to mourn, exactly. Mourning to her felt like her scout rifle in her hands and Scourned heads in her scope; it felt right and it felt vile. Saiph has told her, repeatedly at this point, that everyone mourns differently. That it's okay to feel conflicted. Sumi isn't sure murder is the best coping mechanism. 

"Saiph," Sumi says. She's perched on a rock in the middle of Hive wreckage, picking off Scorned as they run by. If she had been human, her voice would have sounded rough with disuse. Her Ghost materializes out of one of Sumi's packs. 

"Sumi," Saiph says quietly. "It's been about four days since you've talked to anyone. Or me. Are you alright?" 

"I've been thinking on the Barons and what they've said about Cayde. And me." Sumi doesn't look at Saiph. "About being murderers." 

"Sumi..."

"No, hear me out." Sumi says, locking her eyes on the Ghost. "Most of the time I shoot because I'm shot at. But the Fallen are like that for a reason. The Traveler, or the Vanguard, or the Iron Lords - someone made them like that. I simply....I can't accept that it's okay to take my rage out on something because they are the Traveler's enemy." 

Saiph hovers just out of eye sight for a moment, as if trying to hide herself from Sumi, from the world. "The Traveler spoke to you," she says. 

"And who, except us, says that is a good thing?" 

Sumi-16 holsters her gun. She's found dead ghosts here, enough to know that other guardians have come to the Tangled Shore to escape the Light. But would any of this even be here if the Traveler never came to Sol in the first place? Humanity was spacefaring at the time and all the Traveler brought was a fleeting "golden age" and a horrific collapse. Enemies upon enemies. It makes her circuits burn thinking about it. And what humanity did with it - Exos and the Deep Stone Crypt, what Sumi can't remember, the dreams where she kills Virginia, and Schirm, and Casky, and Ivy, and Jordan - everyone. 

"I think we were built to kill." 

"What?" Saiph zooms into view. "What do you mean? Guardians?" 

"Yeah, maybe. But Exos? Exos definitely. We were people once and then they jammed us into computers, put guns in our hands, and told us to never stop shooting." As she talks, Sumi's voice gains an unfamiliar edge - her chest vibrates with her voice and her hands shake imperceptibly. "That's why I'm gunning for Uldren - I only know how to process this broad grief through killing someone else. And maybe that's why Cayde was how he was. He told Casky and I once to make a promise to ourselves stronger than the Crypt. I didn't take him seriously." 

Sumi lowers herself off of her rock, ignoring the growls of hive and cracking of corrupted ether. Saiph floats around Sumi's head, flitting in the way she does when she thinks Sumi is doing something stupid. Or dangerous. Or both. The hive structures around her creak with age and decay and brood...bubbles? What are those things anyway? 

_You could have been Kings and Queens of the Deep..._

Her feet touch the dusty, asteroid ground and thoughts of the Traveler bounce uncomfortably around Sumi's head. Saiph perches on her shoulder and hums quietly - a calming tactic the two of them came up with during their search for the Black Garden. Neither of them knew what they were doing or why - and now they're big damn heroes for blind firing into gods and machines and desperate scavengers. So Saiph hums and Sumi breathes. It's a simple arrangement, to be sure, but a useful one. 

"I'm going to make a promise Saiph," Sumi says, walking cautiously back towards Thieves Landing. "We're going to do good, even if that good isn't the Vanguards' good. If we can help people, we're going to help people. And the Scorned? They've had a hand in killing the Awoken, who didn't have direct hands in what Cayde or Petra did." 

Saiph hums for a moment. "So they're going down?" 

"They're going down."


	7. Nobody Knows You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casky-8 and Uldren Sov  
> The Dawning After 
> 
> Uldren is new at the tower, and what a time to arrive - the city center is done up in lights and Pulled Pork seems excited to show him around. But there is a tension in the Guardian ranks, and the looks they're giving Uldren are...uncomfortable to say the least.

Transmat is uncomfortable, not because of the process, but because of the looks Uldren will inevitably receive. The Awoken in the Dreaming City were kind enough to lend him a ship but the stares... A number of them (who he was certain he'd never met before) referred to him by name or called him Prince. Disquieting flashes of death and fire and Ether danced in his head when they did, and he hoped that trend wouldn't continue in the City. 

Pulled Pork, his ghost, assured him everything would be fine. He was apparently misinformed. 

The civilians around him seemed unmoved by Uldren's appearance in the street, seemingly used to the awkward gawking of new guardians. The smell of the street vendors' food wafted around him and he had an urge to try as many of the foods as he could but no one had really explained currency yet. Money was...definitely a thing, though he wasn't sure how he knew that. 

"Oh, no," a voice said from up the street. A woman in a poncho, helping hang lanterns, jumped down from her ladder and walked up to Uldren. "This is bad." 

"What's bad?" Uldren asked. Pulled Pork materialized from one of his pouches to hover protectively near his guardian. 

"You. You sort of...You have a history here," the woman said. She struggled with each sentence, and Uldren could see a sort of anger pricked at the corners of her eyes. Sadness. But how could he have a history here if he'd never been here? 

"He's not bad, he's my guardian," Pulled Pork said, jabbing aggressively in the woman's direction. 

"Right, uh huh," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Okay. The name's Hawthorne." 

"Uldren."

"Let's....let's take a walk." Hawthorne took Uldren by the arm and spun him around, towards a vast wall that dominated the horizon. The buildings became denser as they walked, stacking on top of one another. The shops shifted from entire floors to closet-sized holes in the wall made cozy by the addition of tea tables, blankets, and tapestries. Sweeper bots kept the streets clean and people were mostly busy decorating. It's here where Uldren finally started to notice the staring - angry glares aimed in his direction, the odd person holding their friend back from approaching. 

"He's a kinderguardian," Hawthorne offered, and nearly every guardian they pass scowled, glancing up at the sky with a few choice, muttered curses. 

The Traveler hung over the Last Safe City, indifferent to the entire affair. 

"Like I said, there's a history here that's...kind of difficult to avoid," Hawthorne began as they passed the majority of the activity. The city was dark this close to the wall, and nearly everyone living here migrated in towards the parks and sunlit banks further into the City's center. "Normally, Zavala would be the one to give you this talk but...well. It's complicated." 

"Because of the history," Uldren said. Hawthorne nodded in his direction. 

"You catch on quick." She stopped and led them down an ally, pausing near a small bench in a secluded courtyard. She gestured to the bench and they both sat down, Pulled Pork still flitting around Uldren's head. "Zavala doesn't like it when guardians look for their past, but you're is going to get it thrown in your face the second I take you up the elevator to the tower. So I'll give it to you straight. In your past life, you pissed off a lot of people. Specifically, you pissed off a fireteam of well-regarded guardians." 

"I don't remember -" 

"You wouldn't," Pulled Pork said, sagging a little. "Guardians never remember their past lives." 

"What you're little light said," Hawthorne smiled at Pulled Pork, and he seemed to lighten up a little. "But that doesn't change the fact that you...well the you that existed before your death...killed the Hunter vanguard. And people aren't going to be quick to forgive that." 

Uldren stared at Hawthorne, trying to process this new information. He didn't feel like the type of person who would kill someone else. "I thought guardians usually came back when they died. Pulled Pork told me there's a whole thing - the Crucible, I think - where guardians practice war maneuvers on each other." 

Hawthrone held up a hand. "The...well the Before-Uldren. He had a team of barrons they tell me, and one of them killed....they killed Cayde's ghost." 

The name Cayde hit something in him - a deep pain he can't place, a voice in his head _O brother, mine_ and he winced. He pressed a hand against his eyes. Hawthorne noticed this and stopped, letting Uldren get his barrings again. Pulled Pork scanned him, healing pains here and there, unwilling to let his guardian experience the physical symptoms of a metaphysical pain.

"Hawthorne?" A creaking, robotic voice called down the alleyway and Hawthorne looked up, harried, and started lightly tapping Uldren in the shoulder as if to somehow physically push him back into the dirt. "Louis...er...said you'd be out here and your tracker pinged I hope I'm not..." 

An exo, deep red in color with a white streak of paint slashed across their face stopped in the opening to the courtyard, their blue eyes staring at Hawthorne and Uldren. They were in relaxed gear - loose training pants and a lightly armored top - but there was no mistaking a guardian. Their ghost flitted into being next to them, and Uldren could just make out words of calm from the little light. 

"Hawthorne can I uh..." CASKY-8 said, the buzz in the back of her throat intense and thick with grief. "Can I talk to you for a second?" 

"Yep, coming, Casky!" Hawthorne said all too quickly, dashing over to CASKY and leaving Uldren alone on the bench. He could hear hushed whispers coming from the alley, and something, some loose instinct kicked in and he could suddenly make out what the two women were saying. 

"What. the fuck."

"He's a...well Pulled Pork, you know how he was looking for his guardian?" 

"And he picked _him_?!" 

"You know Ghosts mostly think it's a destiny thing, right?" 

"Even still, that means _the Traveler_ picked him and I think that's worse--"

"Casky you're panicking." That was the ghost. 

"I'm not panicking, I'm _pissed_." Uldren quickly moved his eyes (and ears) away from the alley as he heard heavy, metal foot falls march in his direction. 

"CASKY!" The ghost (Rigel, Uldren found out his name later) shouted, quickly trying to catch up with his guardian. But CASKY-8 was already at the bench, staring down at Uldren with an intensity the newly minted Hunter didn't want to face. After a moment of silence, CASKY-8 knelt and grabbed Uldren's chin, forcing him to look at her. 

"I hope to whatever gods are out there that you prove to be better than you were when Sumi put a bullet in your head," CASKY said coolly, her grip on his skin tight and unforgiving. She shoved his face away from her's and stood up. "The name's CASKY-8. Titan. You killed someone I love. Pray you don't meet me in the Crucible, Sov." And she marched away.

Pulled Pork's normal gravitas and protectiveness shrank in the face of CASKY's rage. Rigel sighed, floating in front of Uldren, who was still looking at the ground. "I'm sorry, Guardian, Pulled Pork," Rigel said solemnly. "Casky's been through a lot and uh...I'll go talk some sense into her." He nodded at Pulled Pork and raced down the alleyway after his guardian. Hawthorne came back and placed a comforting hand on Uldren's shoulder. 

"Listen, that...is probably the worst you will have to face," She said, trying to sound optimistic. Uldren shuddered, forcing his pain and the tears he can feel in his eyes, down into himself. "I'm sorry, Uldren." 

"No, she...if the me-before-me really did kill this Cayde then I have to make up for it," he said, facing Hawthorne with the resolve she'd heard the Prince had been known for. "I'll prove myself worthy of this second life." 

"For your sake, I hope you do. Welcome to the Last Safe City, Guardian."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying something new. Additionally this is how I *hope* they handle Uldren's arrival at the tower and his life as a guardian but knowing Bungo they will bungo-it-up some how.


End file.
